Located at the Marilyn Kapner Levin Center for
Children's Advocacy and Child Abuse Prevention
Children's Advocacy and Child Abuse Prevention
Participate in the nationally recognized Stewards of Children course and become empowered to fight the epidemic of child sexual abuse.
Participate in the nationally recognized Stewards of Children course and become empowered to fight the epidemic of child sexual abuse.
Adoption Walk aimed at recruiting more foster and adoptive families - a huge success
With the media spotlight focused on another community, we should reflect on our own community and the fact that the plague of child physical and sexual abuse exists in our own backyard.
In 1985 Huntsville District Attorney, Bud Cramer, recognized that the child abuse intervention system was flawed. Child victims of abuse were shuttled to numerous intervention and investigative agencies for multiple interviews. The system designed to protect children was actually traumatizing these child victims. Cramer saw there was a better way and began a movement to create children's advocacy centers. A children's advocacy center combines the professionals and resources needed in child abuse cases under one child-friendly facility. With a children's advocacy center, children could receive medical exams without going to a crowded emergency room, could report what happened to them without going to a police station, and could receive the mental health counseling they needed to begin recovery.
In 1997, a group of concerned citizens and professionals in Escambia County recognized the need for a unified and collaborative response to child abuse cases. This determined group decided that Escambia County needed a children's advocacy center and began fundraising efforts to open Gulf Coast Kid's House.
Gulf Coast Kid's House was established in 1998 and opened its doors to provide direct service in 2004. The partner agencies located within Gulf Coast Kid's House form a multidisciplinary team that responds to child sexual abuse cases, egregious physical abuse cases and medical neglect cases in Escambia County. Since opening in 2004, Gulf Coast Kid's House has provided much needed services to child victims of abuse and their families. In 2010 alone Gulf Coast Kid's House provided services to over 1200 children.
Gulf Coast Kid's House recognized that the community needed additional education regarding child abuse and child abuse prevention and in 2006 established its prevention program. To learn more about our efforts in child abuse prevention, please visit the prevention section of this site or call 595-5800.